F
Foxy Grey Joker
It’s left hand drive !
D
Dasteknoviking
Cheers from Germany 
I rented one of these Knaus vans for 3 week trip to Norway last summer. I am cross shopping many different alternatives for my wife and our dog.
The van I had was the arrangement with rear bed and front drop down bed.
First thing to get out of the way, rear bed comfort is only good on half of the bed without the stupid shower arrangement. Reason is that there is a raised portion that "holds" the pad on place on top of the shower cubicle (will try to attach a photo from my "review") . This raised portion kept digging into my wife's legs while sleeping. If you swapped your head to the shower side, it was even worse. The mattress is quite soft and comfortable. The step into the bed seems like a compete afterthought. It jiggles around feels like it will break with more use.. Supposedly they updated this part.
The shower curtains/doors bang around like crazy when driving, the small catches that hold the doors in place are not sufficient enough. I ended up putting some suction cups on the walls to prevent the doors from flying around. When I pulled out of the rental place, the first Autobahn On-ramp the doors came flying open and scared the poop out of me.
The shower is quite difficult to slide up and down, level surface/ramps etc... My wife had to use a lot of force to slide the shower, so it became my chore. The shower drains are not the best. However the shower is quite spacious and water is stupid hot - quite a bonus in cold Norway.
The upstairs bed with the ladder in place - you can't open the bathroom door. You must remove the ladder, get under the bed and then you can open the bathroom door to get inside - if someone puts the ladder back in you will not be able to escape the bathroom. If you are sleeping in the rear bed - to get out, ladder needs to be removed as well. There is almost no room between the two beds to move around. We never used this bed and just chucked all our laundry and other stuff up there.
The sink doesn't slide all the way out of the way to use the toilet. Maybe it was just my unit, but use of toilet was tricky.
Refrigerator should open both ways, many times you want to reach in for a beer and can't open the fridge from outside the van.
The oddly shaped floor behind the drivers cab is quite stupid. Our Labrador kept falling onto the different floor cavities and we grabbed his bed with us so he could easily lay there. The floor should be flat, we tripped on it many times just getting around the van. See the image with a floor mat covering one of the odd raised parts of the floor.
Quality of the materials leaves a lot to be desired. I noticed many poorly installed furnishings inside the van. Upper bed trim was already detaching and this van was brand new. The touch control lights didn't work half the time.
Driving:
The habitation area has wind deflectors which meet with the cab to allow air to travel around the van. These wind deflectors rattled like mad when driving at 120kmh. We encountered a nasty storm in Denmark on the return leg and the roof skylight window on the front actually opened, and we had to stop and close it - 3x.
The habitation area door was poorly insulated, and it sounded like the door was always open when driving. You could hear the exhaust on acceleration through the door! I must say my van had the "premium" door... Which adds the hooks, umbrella holder, privacy blinds. However this door didn't wanna stay open properly, so I had to use bungee cords to keep it open...
Van needs rear wheels to be extended out as it tends to sway too much due to soft springs. If you look at the van you can see they are sunk in good 15cm too deep into the wheel arches. Not only does it look poorly, it affect the handling of the van. Moving inside the van just loading and trying to get set up in the morning, whole van tends to move a lot - would need to install some stabilizers/jacks to prevent that from happening.
I put about 6k km on the van and fuel economy was quite good, on German Autobahn doing 120-140 it got about 9-10L/100 in perfect sunny 26C day. That got up to 13L in Denmark doing barely 100 due to the nasty winds. 150ps 7spd DSG didn't have much problems with moving the van, however the constant noise from poorly insulated door made driveing tiresome. The van was OK up to about 80-90Kmh and anything over that the noise is quite unbearable.
Trunk/garage space is fantastic. Diesel heater was also very good. Very good water filling and draining option. I like the hidden cable hook up behind the access door - has the water fill there as well. Windshield blind for nite time needs to be rethought.. I would just use an external blind.
Many of the shortcomings can be fixed on this van, however I feel like I shouldn't have to fix quality and design issues myself.
Here in Germany you can now find them for 55-60k euro which is tempting since I could give most the shortcomings myself.
Personally Grand California works better. Let me know if you have any questions.
Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk
I rented one of these Knaus vans for 3 week trip to Norway last summer. I am cross shopping many different alternatives for my wife and our dog.The van I had was the arrangement with rear bed and front drop down bed.
First thing to get out of the way, rear bed comfort is only good on half of the bed without the stupid shower arrangement. Reason is that there is a raised portion that "holds" the pad on place on top of the shower cubicle (will try to attach a photo from my "review") . This raised portion kept digging into my wife's legs while sleeping. If you swapped your head to the shower side, it was even worse. The mattress is quite soft and comfortable. The step into the bed seems like a compete afterthought. It jiggles around feels like it will break with more use.. Supposedly they updated this part.
The shower curtains/doors bang around like crazy when driving, the small catches that hold the doors in place are not sufficient enough. I ended up putting some suction cups on the walls to prevent the doors from flying around. When I pulled out of the rental place, the first Autobahn On-ramp the doors came flying open and scared the poop out of me.
The shower is quite difficult to slide up and down, level surface/ramps etc... My wife had to use a lot of force to slide the shower, so it became my chore. The shower drains are not the best. However the shower is quite spacious and water is stupid hot - quite a bonus in cold Norway.
The upstairs bed with the ladder in place - you can't open the bathroom door. You must remove the ladder, get under the bed and then you can open the bathroom door to get inside - if someone puts the ladder back in you will not be able to escape the bathroom. If you are sleeping in the rear bed - to get out, ladder needs to be removed as well. There is almost no room between the two beds to move around. We never used this bed and just chucked all our laundry and other stuff up there.
The sink doesn't slide all the way out of the way to use the toilet. Maybe it was just my unit, but use of toilet was tricky.
Refrigerator should open both ways, many times you want to reach in for a beer and can't open the fridge from outside the van.
The oddly shaped floor behind the drivers cab is quite stupid. Our Labrador kept falling onto the different floor cavities and we grabbed his bed with us so he could easily lay there. The floor should be flat, we tripped on it many times just getting around the van. See the image with a floor mat covering one of the odd raised parts of the floor.
Quality of the materials leaves a lot to be desired. I noticed many poorly installed furnishings inside the van. Upper bed trim was already detaching and this van was brand new. The touch control lights didn't work half the time.
Driving:
The habitation area has wind deflectors which meet with the cab to allow air to travel around the van. These wind deflectors rattled like mad when driving at 120kmh. We encountered a nasty storm in Denmark on the return leg and the roof skylight window on the front actually opened, and we had to stop and close it - 3x.
The habitation area door was poorly insulated, and it sounded like the door was always open when driving. You could hear the exhaust on acceleration through the door! I must say my van had the "premium" door... Which adds the hooks, umbrella holder, privacy blinds. However this door didn't wanna stay open properly, so I had to use bungee cords to keep it open...
Van needs rear wheels to be extended out as it tends to sway too much due to soft springs. If you look at the van you can see they are sunk in good 15cm too deep into the wheel arches. Not only does it look poorly, it affect the handling of the van. Moving inside the van just loading and trying to get set up in the morning, whole van tends to move a lot - would need to install some stabilizers/jacks to prevent that from happening.
I put about 6k km on the van and fuel economy was quite good, on German Autobahn doing 120-140 it got about 9-10L/100 in perfect sunny 26C day. That got up to 13L in Denmark doing barely 100 due to the nasty winds. 150ps 7spd DSG didn't have much problems with moving the van, however the constant noise from poorly insulated door made driveing tiresome. The van was OK up to about 80-90Kmh and anything over that the noise is quite unbearable.
Trunk/garage space is fantastic. Diesel heater was also very good. Very good water filling and draining option. I like the hidden cable hook up behind the access door - has the water fill there as well. Windshield blind for nite time needs to be rethought.. I would just use an external blind.
Many of the shortcomings can be fixed on this van, however I feel like I shouldn't have to fix quality and design issues myself.
Here in Germany you can now find them for 55-60k euro which is tempting since I could give most the shortcomings myself.
Personally Grand California works better. Let me know if you have any questions.
Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk
W
Wannabecamperman
Great write up, thanks!Cheers from Germany
The van I had was the arrangement with rear bed and front drop down bed.
First thing to get out of the way, rear bed comfort is only good on half of the bed without the stupid shower arrangement. Reason is that there is a raised portion that "holds" the pad on place on top of the shower cubicle (will try to attach a photo from my "review") . This raised portion kept digging into my wife's legs while sleeping. If you swapped your head to the shower side, it was even worse. The mattress is quite soft and comfortable. The step into the bed seems like a compete afterthought. It jiggles around feels like it will break with more use.. Supposedly they updated this part.
The shower curtains/doors bang around like crazy when driving, the small catches that hold the doors in place are not sufficient enough. I ended up putting some suction cups on the walls to prevent the doors from flying around. When I pulled out of the rental place, the first Autobahn On-ramp the doors came flying open and scared the poop out of me.
The shower is quite difficult to slide up and down, level surface/ramps etc... My wife had to use a lot of force to slide the shower, so it became my chore. The shower drains are not the best. However the shower is quite spacious and water is stupid hot - quite a bonus in cold Norway.
The upstairs bed with the ladder in place - you can't open the bathroom door. You must remove the ladder, get under the bed and then you can open the bathroom door to get inside - if someone puts the ladder back in you will not be able to escape the bathroom. If you are sleeping in the rear bed - to get out, ladder needs to be removed as well. There is almost no room between the two beds to move around. We never used this bed and just chucked all our laundry and other stuff up there.
The sink doesn't slide all the way out of the way to use the toilet. Maybe it was just my unit, but use of toilet was tricky.
Refrigerator should open both ways, many times you want to reach in for a beer and can't open the fridge from outside the van.
The oddly shaped floor behind the drivers cab is quite stupid. Our Labrador kept falling onto the different floor cavities and we grabbed his bed with us so he could easily lay there. The floor should be flat, we tripped on it many times just getting around the van. See the image with a floor mat covering one of the odd raised parts of the floor.
Quality of the materials leaves a lot to be desired. I noticed many poorly installed furnishings inside the van. Upper bed trim was already detaching and this van was brand new. The touch control lights didn't work half the time.
Driving:
The habitation area has wind deflectors which meet with the cab to allow air to travel around the van. These wind deflectors rattled like mad when driving at 120kmh. We encountered a nasty storm in Denmark on the return leg and the roof skylight window on the front actually opened, and we had to stop and close it - 3x.
The habitation area door was poorly insulated, and it sounded like the door was always open when driving. You could hear the exhaust on acceleration through the door! I must say my van had the "premium" door... Which adds the hooks, umbrella holder, privacy blinds. However this door didn't wanna stay open properly, so I had to use bungee cords to keep it open...
Van needs rear wheels to be extended out as it tends to sway too much due to soft springs. If you look at the van you can see they are sunk in good 15cm too deep into the wheel arches. Not only does it look poorly, it affect the handling of the van. Moving inside the van just loading and trying to get set up in the morning, whole van tends to move a lot - would need to install some stabilizers/jacks to prevent that from happening.
I put about 6k km on the van and fuel economy was quite good, on German Autobahn doing 120-140 it got about 9-10L/100 in perfect sunny 26C day. That got up to 13L in Denmark doing barely 100 due to the nasty winds. 150ps 7spd DSG didn't have much problems with moving the van, however the constant noise from poorly insulated door made driveing tiresome. The van was OK up to about 80-90Kmh and anything over that the noise is quite unbearable.
Trunk/garage space is fantastic. Diesel heater was also very good. Very good water filling and draining option. I like the hidden cable hook up behind the access door - has the water fill there as well. Windshield blind for nite time needs to be rethought.. I would just use an external blind.
Many of the shortcomings can be fixed on this van, however I feel like I shouldn't have to fix quality and design issues myself.
Here in Germany you can now find them for 55-60k euro which is tempting since I could give most the shortcomings myself.
Personally Grand California works better. Let me know if you have any questions.
Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk
B
Barry Chuckle
VIP Member
I love it when people take the time to review vehicles from first hand experience. They're worth 10 YouTube reviews which all seem to have gushing praise for anything they 'review' but what they really mean is 'thank you ever so much for lending us your van, we won't say anything particularly negative as we don't want you to stop giving us vehicles to try....'
D
Dasteknoviking
Thanks!
What I hate the most about all reviews online: no one drives the van to say how well this "Knaus, Hymer, Westfalia, etc" drives/behaves on the road. They tend to forget that we as the users/buyers will have to get behind the wheel of these vehicles and put thousands of kilometers on them per yer - so comfort in the cab is very much important! I don't want to put up with wind noise, poor sound insulation, squeaks and rattles.
Frankly before I drop that kind of coin on a vehicle, I want to know what it's like to live with it. Thus I try to rent them for sometime, some dealers allow you to test out the van properly.
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Skiver
VIP Member
Obvs!
Norfolk Jim
Trying to retire but there's always one last job..
Lifetime VIP Member
I'd seen one of these which looked good and has a slide away toilet to give bigger shower but it's Ford based.
www.practicalmotorhome.com
Chausson S514 Sport Line - Practical Motorhome
Well-received by lovers of the great outdoors when it launched, the revamped Chausson S514 Sport Line now boasts more distinctive good looks.
www.practicalmotorhome.com
B
Barry Chuckle
VIP Member
Goodness, that's cheap as chips!!!!!I'd seen one of these which looked good and has a slide away toilet to give bigger shower but it's Ford based.
Chausson S514 Sport Line - Practical Motorhome
Well-received by lovers of the great outdoors when it launched, the revamped Chausson S514 Sport Line now boasts more distinctive good looks.
Norfolk Jim
Trying to retire but there's always one last job..
Lifetime VIP Member
You'd be lucky to find one at that cost when you add all the necessary extras I think it comes in more at about £75k. Must admit layout is superb and not wide like the Knaus. Down side for me is height which is why I'm wanting Cali. I also don't want the extra metre hanging off the back for parking etc.
D
Dasteknoviking
Stay away from the 2.0 Ford diesel... They are a catastrophy. Timing belts chewing up, spining rod bearings, just problems galore.I'd seen one of these which looked good and has a slide away toilet to give bigger shower but it's Ford based.
Chausson S514 Sport Line - Practical Motorhome
Well-received by lovers of the great outdoors when it launched, the revamped Chausson S514 Sport Line now boasts more distinctive good looks.
I recently had a chat with a guy who works on all different kids of vans, in order of bad to good...
Ford > Citroen/Peugeot/Ford(all same) 2.2/2.4 (on the Ford) > VW 2.0 TDI = Renault 2.3dci > Iveco 2.3 > Iveco 3.0 JTD
Basically if you can put up with the Fiat interior the engines are basically bomb proof.
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andyinluton
Super Poster
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You can put the same list in reverse order when it comes to ease of getting hold of parts and there prices once the vans are a few years old.
You stand a decent chance of getting hold of Old Ford and vw parts, ask for something for a six year old fiat & it’s a totally different story.
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